Here are some more trip notes from the round-the-world trip my wife and I took for a month between December 2010 and January 2011. Australia had long been on my bucket list, so it was really exciting to finally make it down under! I hope these notes will prove useful for somebody. You can read more of my trip reports by clicking on the trip notes tab.

This trip was made possible by AA’s unique OneWorld award chart where we flew around the world in first class for the cost of opening up a few credit cards. With myriad of rules it’s not designed for beginners, but it sure is a whole lot of fun to play with!

-I’m going a bit out of order here, but for now I’ll skip Tasmania and I’ll lump it together with Hamilton Island in a future installment. Here is an outline of the trip and where the notes on each section can be found:

-Sydney is gorgeous, no doubt about it. Easily one of the most beautiful urban centers that exist. Its harbour is simply a site that you have to see with your own two eyes as it’s just breathtaking. Definitely worth having on a bucket list.

-After 10 days of driving around Melbourne and Tasmania (on the wrong side of the road) taking in as many sights as possible, we toned it down to just relax in Sydney and do as little as possible. Quite frankly our Melbourne and Tasmania plans were just too aggressive (especially with a pregnant wife) and we were exhausted!

-Instead of renting a car and dealing with the traffic and parking costs we took a shuttle from the airport to the Park Hyatt Sydney. I booked the Sydney Airport Connect which now appears to be called AirBus Sydney because it was just $20 round-trip. You get what you pay for. We were the last stop and it took over 2 hours to finally get to our hotel. Once in the hotel I realized that I forgot one of my guidebooks in the shuttle but the company refused to contact the driver to look for the book. On the return trip home they showed up before their scheduled time and left without waiting even for 30 seconds as they pulled away just as got to the door. They refused to provide a refund or to come back and get us. Not a pleasant experience to say the least so avoid them at all costs.

Hotel:

-The Park Hyatt Sydney lives up to the high standards I have for the Park Hyatt brand. The hotel is stunning and the location is perhaps the best of any hotel in Australia. From our balcony we could see both the Sydney Opera House across the picturesque harbour and the Harbour Bridge. The service in the hotel is excellent although unlike the Park Hyatt Melbourne they are quite stingy with suite upgrades for diamonds. No matter though as the room and large and the location are view are priceless. We requested and received a room on the ground floor (which is in fact elevated over the pier outside the balcony) so that we wouldn’t have to deal with the staircases on shabbos.

-The hotel bought us a daily kosher breakfast as a Hyatt Diamond benefit. Unfortunately the breakfast, which is catered by Passion8, was not cholov yisroel. Passion8 refused to swap out the unused meals for free, so the hotel went above and beyond and bought us brand new cholov yisroel meals. Major props!

-In another example of the hotel going way above and beyond, the doorman who saw our shuttle company drive right off proceeded to call the shuttle company to ask them to call back the driver but they refused. Without hesitating the doorman made another call and an Audi Quattro pulled up to take us to the airport in luxury on the Park Hyatt’s dime…now that’s 5 star service!!!

-There is a pool and hot tub on the rooftop, though it has little privacy due to it being in clear view of pedestrians on the Harbour Bridge.

-We thought the hotel was stunning, but the hotel actually closed shortly after our stay and just had a soft reopening last week after a year of renovations. When we return to Sydney we would definitely stay at this hotel again. Rates can go for $1,000 a night, which makes it a great value when using free nights you can get from the Hyatt card or you can transfer 22,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points from cards like Sapphire Preferred to get free nights as well.

Transportation:
-The hotel is just a short walk to the Circular Quay (pronounced Key) which is the main transport hub for busses, trains, and ferrys. There’s a bit of a learning curve, but soon enough we figured out exactly which busses would get us to the kosher restaurants near Bondi Beach and which ferry could take us to Rose Bay from where you can walk to other kosher restaurants as well. Public transport is inexpensive (even cheaper if you buy a 10 pack of tickets) and pretty efficient while taxis are quite expensive. Overall we were happy not to have a car, though now that we have a kid I would definitely have to rethink that equation.

Activities:
-Australia is not a cheap country at all and Sydney is a very expensive city. While historically the US dollar was worth much more than the Australian dollar it was at parity during our trip. Now 100 US dollars only buys 93 Australian dollars. This makes activities like the Bridge Climb, priced at A$200-270, or even a visit to the zoo at A$44 quite expensive. We settled for alternatives. We walked across the bridge for free and gawked and took pictures at those couples who had spent $500 (plus they charge extra if you want pictures and they don’t allow you to bring your own camera) to climb to the top. The people that do the climb often rave about it, though whether that’s a function of having spent a few hundred dollars on a climb is debatable. The views of the harbour from the bridge walk make it a free activity worth doing. We had gone to a wonderful animal park in Tasmania for a small fraction of the price of the Taronga Zoo in Sydney.

-The weekend market in The Rocks, the historical district around the Park Hyatt, is quite fun and is a great place to buy souvenirs. There are booths where glassmakers make replicas of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge right in front of your eyes. You can even take a video of the piece you buy as they make it. And best of all prices are surprisingly reasonable at about A$40 and they can be negotiated as well. The only problem was that although they “guaranteed” that the way they wrap it that it will survive the plane-ride home in your carry-on, when you negotiate too much and have to pay in cash and they don’t answer their phone it’s hard to get them to honor that guaranty. Luckily I have an awesome wife who took the splices of the Sydney Opera House and superglued the ones that were still whole back together again!

-The vast Royal Botanic Gardens made for an extremely pleasant shabbos afternoon stroll from the Park Hyatt.

-Sydney kind of reminded me of Venice in that it kind of just screams to be explored. We would just hop on a ferry (definitely take a ferry while you’re in Sydney no matter what!) or bus, get off at someplace interesting, and just start exploring the city for ourselves without a guidebook. We found all kinds of neat places this way and it’s a pretty fun way to explore things for yourself.

Eateries:
-Katzy’s in Bondi is as good as it gets for kosher food in Australia. Prices were reasonable and most of the food was very good. After eating leftovers from Melbourne for a week in Tasmania it was good to get any fresh food, but the Ribs I had at Katzy’s really hit the spot and were excellent. We took out food for shabbos from Katzy’s as well, some of which was good, some of which was barely edible, so beware if you are feeling adventurous when you order!

-Pita Mix has decent Israeli style food. Shwarma and Shnitzel were good, the fries are more like potato chips for better or for worse. A decent place for a bite. Walkable to the Rose Bay ferry. To his credit the owner did introduce me to the nougats from South Africa with the edible rice paper wrappers that are pretty good.

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rcarentals

definetly suggest a car for sydney, and next time swap the planning to relax at melbourne park hyatt and go all over sydney! there’s alot more to do in sydney! alot nicer too!

Reply

March 4, 2012 10:34 pm

Dan

@rcarentals:
We didn’t miss not having a car as the public transportation was excellent and parking horrendous, though like I said, with kids it’s a different story.

So what did I miss in Sydney by taking it easy?

We didn’t spend time in Melbourne, we drove the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians which were incredible and people said there was no point of going to the Blue Mountains after experiencing all that.

We say wild kangaroos, koalas, penguins, and many other animals in our travels around Melbourne and Tasmania, so we didn’t feel the need to drop $100 on going to a zoo in Sydney either. Beaches in Sydney were all too crowded for my tastes, I’m more into secluded Hawaiian beaches than Bondi…

we were in Sydney two separate times on our trip to Australia, once with a car and once without. Public transportation is great, and driving is not difficult and neither is finding parking. The bridge climb was absolutely awesome and the whole family thought it was worth the time and money. Also seeing a performance at the Sydney opera house was an amazing experience. The acoustics are fabulous and there are many events that occur there at one time. There is more than one venue within the opera house.
As for Australian beaches, Cairns was not crowded when we went (August) And the Great Barrier Reef was spectacular. (Diving was some of the best I’ve ever done. The variety of sea life was astounding) Australia was one of the best vacations we’ve taken, but you need a lot of time. It’s a big country with a lot of unique features. And the people are so nice and friendly. The zoos were actually fabulous and worth seeing. Not only do you get information on the native fauna, but you also get to people watch the locals. (And the only place we saw a platypus was in the Sydney zoo.)

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March 5, 2012 7:26 am

james

Dan you should visit south africa and cape town in particular for your next vacation its beautiful here!

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March 5, 2012 7:48 am

Deal Guy

Nice notes.

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March 5, 2012 1:20 pm

moish

nice report! thanks!

did the ph have any clue as to what you were talking about with cholov yisrael?

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March 5, 2012 4:56 pm

jj

Dan, as usual your trip reports are awesome!…btw, I am traveling to Miami next week and wanted to know if you could recommend a good hotel near the beach but under $150/nt ( it could be anywhere from miami beach up to ft lauderdale area)..also any great restaurants there?? thanks a lot!

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March 5, 2012 7:23 pm

sky121

Thanks for sharing!

Reply

March 5, 2012 7:36 pm

fan of dan

i rented a car in Sydney and had nothing but regrets. Parking near the harbor ran 40 usd per hour.Shoulda done it your way.

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March 5, 2012 10:14 pm

Chaim

keep them coming

Reply

March 5, 2012 11:59 pm

orrin

Could you describe a little how you managed all these trips for ‘just the miles’ from opening a few credit cards…..?

Thanks,
Orrin

Reply

March 6, 2012 9:26 pm

eryuus

Hello, guys. Last year we travelled around Europe by car but there was a car rental fraud scheme. We booked a car from one company 2 months before the travel, and paid the bill in advance. When we arrived, a company representative met us at the airport and took to the office. BUT instead of a booked car, we were given another type of car! We were shocked and they said that they didn’t have at that time the car we booked. Now we are going to Australia and we don’t want to come across the same stuff. Does anyone know where i can take a car in melbourne?

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